It is common for a surgeon to intubate a body lumen of a patient with a stent before engaging in surgery of target body tissues adjacent that body lumen. The stent placed in the body lumen is normally hollow to allow passage of bodily fluids therethrough for near-normal function of the body lumen during the surgery.
Use of a stent makes the nontarget tissues surrounding the body lumen easier to see and feel, so that the surgeon can avoid inadvertent contact with the nontarget tissues during the surgery. The term “nontarget tissues” is used herein to indicate body tissues susceptible to unintentional cauterization due to their proximity to the body tissues being targeted in the procedure.
In addition, the stent may provide rigidity or even some degree of formability to the nontarget tissues. These nontarget tissues are often obscured by fat or other surrounding support tissues, or may resemble another, target, body tissue. Additional rigidity and/or formability, when provided by the stent, will assist the surgeon with locating the nontarget tissues and/or keeping the nontarget tissues in their original position or in a desired alternate position, respectively.
For example, a conventional ureteric double-J stent is a thin, flexible, plastic tube with a retention curl on each end (each curl referred to as a “J”). This stent is designed to be atraumatically inserted into the ureter and pelvis of the kidney prior to abdominal and pelvic surgery to improve visible and tactile identification of the ureter, and may also be sufficiently stiff to help keep the ureter from shifting into the operative field. Such assistance with identification and positioning of any desired nontarget body tissue is particularly useful during electrocautery surgery.
Electrocautery tools use a controlled discharge of focused electricity from an electrified knife to burn/cut through target tissues in a controlled manner. If the probe is inadvertently brought within close proximity of a nontarget tissue, such as the ureter discussed above, the electrical charge emitted may inadvertently burn/damage the nontarget tissue along with the surrounding target tissue. This type of accidental damage can occur very quickly, perhaps even before the proximity of the nontarget tissue is noticed, and can result in complications to the patient such as discomfort, increased surgery time, and dysfunction of previously healthy tissues. Additional surgery may be required to correct accidental electrocautery damage to nontarget body tissues.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an apparatus and method of protecting nontarget tissues of a patient during electrocautery surgery.